The Girl Foretold
by SciFiGleek
Summary: Annette Woods' life was perfectly normal until she met an incredible man with a blue box who grabbed her hand and told her to "Run!" Now at the center of a mysterious prophecy, Annette must fight for her life alongside a man she is falling in love with... Her life will never be normal again.
1. Prophecy: Prologue

**Book One: Prophecy**

* * *

**Prologue**

It probably thinks it scares me, this alien. But it doesn't. Its clawed hands, its needle sharp teeth, its brown flesh looking like the decaying, discarded skin of a snake. None of it scares me, because I have been dealing with its like for the last five years of my life. The only thing that does scare me are the people standing obliviously around me, frozen in time. If I miss a shot, then the person I hit will never know what happened to them. They'll just be dead. And when everyone else awakes, after the creatures are gone, all there will be to blame will be me. I know, because it has happened before. A long, long time ago.

The alien hisses at me, but as usual I don't understand it. For creatures of such a grand intelligence to create a device to freeze time, these things really have a hard time with the English language. Maybe they are incapable of pronouncing it, maybe they just don't care to… it doesn't really matter to me. If they don't speak, it makes it a whole lot easier to think of them as things, as monsters, instead of sentient beings. To me, they're just a pestilence.

This happens every few months, ever since five years ago, when an incredible man named the Doctor grabbed my hand and yelled at me to "Run", and sent me along on a chain of events that would change my life forever. I wish he would come back so I could slap him around the face and demand to know what has taken him so damn long! He left me, told me I would be safe. But I'm not safe. I'm never safe. The aliens are always searching for me, and they can find me anytime, anywhere. I know when their coming, however, as time around me stops, freezes, and all the clocks and all the people become still. There's only two ways to bring them back, the creatures have to leave or I have to get to the device, a metal band that happens to be on the scaly wrist of the alien that is attacking me right now.

It growls at me and leaps forward. I stumble backwards, slipping on the dusty remains of the others in the attack. Hitting my back against the counter and aim my gun and fire – twice – and the creature explodes, its dust mixing with that of its brothers. And settling into my hair and on my skin. Gross. They always do that: explode. Matter dispersal due to time distortion… or something like that. It's been a long time since it's been explained for me.

The metal band, previously fastened to the creature's wrist, falls to the ground with a clatter. I take my time getting up off the ground and dust myself off as well I can, trying to get the alien dust out of my ebony hair and failing miserably. Scooping up the device from the ground I switch it off and then stow it in my purse along with my gun. From previous experience I have about twenty seconds to get back into place. Otherwise when everyone wakes up, it will seem to them as if I have just jumped across the room in less than a second and that will involve a lot of explaining in which I don't particularly want to partake. I go back to the counter I was standing in front of before the attack began and try to look as if I haven't just fought a pack of bloodthirsty aliens. Although, I am better off than last time. No bleeding at least, maybe a few bruises, but those aren't as noticeable.

The cashier lady is waking up, along with the man in the aisle who has been subtly slipping wart remover into his shopping cart for the last ten minutes. Poor man probably thought no one would notice. He also probably didn't expect to be in the middle of a gun fight, not that he would ever know. The cleaning staff would notice something strange had happened, however, as a light dusting of alien covers the ground. They have their work cut out for them.

"Debit or credit?" the cashier lady asks, startling me. I had gotten distracted by wart guy, who has now moved quickly down the aisle and has grabbed a handful of sport magazines and stuffed them in the shopping cart to hide the embarrassing medicine.

"Miss? Debit or credit?" the lady asks again. She shakes her head, probably suffering from a mild headache. Comes with being frozen in time. Later she will pop a few pills and go to bed, pitifully, blissfully oblivious to the truth. She'll write off the dust in my hair and the fact that I have just completely changed position in less than a second as a trick of the light. They always do. One of those odd things that get forgotten, clouded by the endless stream of normal.

"Credit," I smile, digging through my purse for my card, taking care for the cashier not to see the gun resting inside.


	2. Prophecy: Chapter 1

**Book One: Prophecy**

* * *

**Chapter One**

My name is Annette Woods, by the way, and as I mentioned before, this all started about five years ago. I was still in school, only sixteen, and I had just graduated the 11th grade. I was a scrawny kid, tall and clumsy. My dark hair fell in a curly mess around my head as I rarely took the time to style it. While all the other kids would spend their weekends at parties, my usually activities were completely consumed by stories. Books, TV, writing… it didn't matter as long as I had a story being told to me or one of my own flowing out onto the page. I really was a complete geek, and my grades were rather good, especially history and English. Again, anything that told a story. All the other kids thought I was a complete loser and tended to stay away from me like I was carrying a disease and was going to infect them with my intelligence and give them prospects in life. God forbid!

My best (and only) friend was Sasha Bellamy. Who knows why she put up with me, as all I would ever talk about was the latest development of my favorite show or the upcoming release of the newest book written by my favorite author. From what I always used to talk about, I think I told her more about the cast of Harry Potter then about anything actually related to my life.

Sasha was half-Indian, half-French, having moved to America less than a year before we met. We only became friends because I was the only one in the school who bothered to try to understand what she said in her thick mixed accent. Even then we operated on a hit and miss basis when it came to conversation.

The day I met the Doctor, Sasha and I were walking home from school. It was a sunny, Californian afternoon, maybe a bit too hot, but pleasant enough. Sasha was ecstatic because she had gotten invited to Michael Miles's party. Michael was the hottest, most popular guy in school and his annual end of year parties were infamous. Getting invited was a ticket to the in-crowd. Sasha worshipped him, though all I saw in him was the potential for a half-decent waiter; he really was painfully dim-witted and had less ambition than a lazy house cat. Not really my type, but I was loyally following along behind Sasha as she skipped along, over the moon with excitement, chatting unendingly about the party and who else was coming… at least, I think that's what she was saying, as I mentioned before, her accent was very thick.

I had my nose in my book (so well-read that it was falling apart at the seams) and was responding at the right moments to Sasha's excited gushing but still had a general idea of what she was saying, mostly because she had now repeated herself about ten times so far since we had left school. I was in step behind her, watching her heels to be sure not to step into the road or down a manhole or something, engrossed in the protagonist's adventures.

Thud! I walked straight into Sasha, my book squishing into my nose. "Hey," I exclaimed. She didn't respond.

I stashed my book into my purse, and walked around in front of her, waving my hand in front of her face. She didn't as much as blink. I snapped my fingers. Nothing. "Ha, ha, very funny," I said sarcastically. I grabbed her hand and pulled her forward, but she didn't budge, still as stone. Sasha couldn't climb to the top of the rope at gym; she was _not_ strong enough to not so much as even budge when pulled at like that. I stumbled away from her. "I'm going to call for help," I said. She stared at me blankly, seeing through me. "Can you hear me? I'm going to call the police."

I dug my cell phone out of my bag, and hurriedly dialed 911. It rang for a few seconds and as soon as it stopped: "I don't know what happened! She… my friend Sasha, she just froze… She's not moving. Not breathing. I don't know what to do! Send someone please! Help!" I said in one breath.

"Alright," a male voice said from the other end. Even in that one word I could detect an English accent. "Calm down."

I took a deep shaky breath and nodded, even though he couldn't see me.

"How did you call me?" he asked.

This made no sense and I wondered how I had possibly gotten a wrong number when attempting to dial 911. "What?"

"You must be in danger…" he said thoughtfully, as if talking to himself not me, "How else could you have been redirected here?"

"No I thought I would just call the police for fun. Of course I'm in danger… well my friend is… she's just frozen."

There was a ringing, whirling sound from the other side of the phone. I pulled it away from my ear and stared at it.

"Oh that's interesting. Very clever. I'll be right there," the man said, his voice laced with worry and just a bit more than a little bit of excitement. "Stay right where you are and until I get there watch out for anything unusual, anything strange and you run, got that?"

"Strange, like my friend freezing strange?"

"No, like alien strange," he said simply, and then hung up.

"Right," I muttered. The excitement that had been in his voice scared me more than the fact that he had mentioned aliens as if they were everyday and ordinary. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something and glanced up, there was a bird, a raven, hanging in the air, mid-flight. A few leaves were suspended in the air. So something alien was happening. Incredible. All the stories I had read, science fiction had always been my favorite. And now it was real. And that was incredible! I might finally get an adventure instead of just reading the adventures of others and watching them on TV. It was all I'd ever dreamed.

A sudden wind blew and whipped my hair around my face. I tucked it behind my ear and watched in awe as a blue box started to appear in the street a few yards from me. The man, whoever he was, had said to beware of the alien, and a box appearing out of nowhere was most definitely alien, even if it wasn't the strangest thing I had seen so far that day. I gathered my wits and hurried behind a hedge, peeking out from my vantage point and watching as the box settled into existence with a great wheezing. It was blue, wooden (which seemed odd for an alien's ship), and the words "Police Public Call Box" were written at the top in bold white letters. In all my dreams, in all the stories I had heard or imagined, I had always expected an alien's spaceship to be a bit more… metal.

The door of the police box swung open and a man sauntered out from within. He looked perfectly ordinary, if somewhat lacking basic style sense. He closed the door behind him and took a deep breath of the air as if he was stepping out of his house on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, on his way out for a walk. He looked around but his eyes passed by my frozen friend and the floating leaves and the suspended bird, coming to rest on me. "Hello there," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking towards my hiding place. "It's alright. You called me… I'm the Doctor, what's your name?"

I stepped out, my head held high and a twig from the hedge stuck in my hair. "Annette Woods," I said, "and 'the Doctor' is a title, not a name."

"Ah," he replied, smiling boyishly, "but it is my name. I'm the Doctor. You can call me Doc… no don't call me 'Doc', Doc is rubbish. I'm the Doctor."

"Alright, Doctor NoName, can you help my friend?"

He didn't answer, instead pulling a metal stick out of his pocket and making it light up and buzz. He strode over to Sasha and waved it over her.

"Is that your magic wand?" I asked sarcastically.

He glanced at me, "It's not magic, it's my sonic screwdriver."

"Screwdriver?"

"Sonic," he confirmed.

"Right," I said slowly. I stood next to him and watched as he stared at the readings on the little 'Sonic Screwdriver'. "Is she going to be alright?"

"She is alright, but you… you are in danger. Why are you not frozen?"

I raised an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest, "You're asking me?"

"No… just thinking out loud." He suddenly grabbed my hand, "Run!"

"From what!" I exclaimed, stumbling after the man.

"Here! Something's happening here, Annette Woods – brilliant name by the way – something more than your friend freezing. Well, actually she didn't freeze; we're in a single second. To her, nothing has happened. Explains why the TARDIS didn't want to land here… she took a lot of convincing."

"And the TARDIS is your blue box?"

He stopped and stared at me. "How did you know that?" He leaned in close to me, a suspicious expression on his face, "Have we met before?"

"Jeez, calm down. It was just a guess. That thing appeared out of nowhere."

"Actually, it didn't appear out of…"

"Weren't we running?" I reminded him.

He smiled, "I like you Annette. You remind me of an old friend. Not sure yet if that's good or not, because I've just lost her. But you remind me of her." With that we we're off again, running down the street past the quiet houses.

"Explain to me exactly what we are running from?" I wheezed after a few minutes. "If whatever affected Sasha was going to affect me, wouldn't it have already?"

"There's a reason you aren't part of the quantum distortion. Whatever caused this wants you, or they used you to get me because they knew you would be able to contact me. Which I haven't worked out yet… why did your call connect to the TARDIS? You're a mystery Annette Woods. I like a good mystery! Once solved a mystery with Agatha Christie. The bug did it."

"Who are you?" I asked, quite sure I was running hand in hand down the street with a mad man.

"Told you, I'm the Doctor. And that is what we were running from. I think it found us." He pointed to a figure across the street, staring down at us from a rooftop. It had brown skin that looked like it was rotting, and it was hunched over and gaunt. Its eyes were black and shallow, cruel, and below was a giant gapping mouth with razor sharp teeth. It hissed and leapt down from the roof with ease, landing on the ground like a cat, on all fours, except this thing was anything but cute and fluffy. It started towards us and the Doctor moved in front of me, protectively shielding me with his body. "Do you know who I am?" he asked the creature, "I don't know if you're here to hunt or if you have some other reason for being on this planet, but you should know it's rather a favorite of mine." He creature narrowed its black eyes, but stopped nonetheless. It understood him, I realized.

The creature hissed and grunted, pacing around us like a wolf on the hunt, looking for weakness in its prey.

"No, I don't think so." The Doctor glared at the creature. "Go back where you came from and drop the quantum field, why don't you?"

More growls.

"What's it saying?" I whispered, peeking around the Doctor and instantly regretting doing so as the creature lunged at me. The Doctor was faster and backed me away. He waved his Sonic Screwdriver at the creature threateningly. "What is it saying?" I insisted.

"Something 'bout a prophecy and you and quite a bit more I'm not going to repeat," he whispered to me, keeping his eyes on the creature. "Don't worry, a quantum field like this… he won't be able to keep it up for long." He paused, "In fact, if I just go like this…" he pointed the Screwdriver at the creature and it vanished into green light. "Ha!" he exclaimed.

"Is it dead?" I asked.

"What? No! I didn't kill it. Why would I kill it? Just sent it back to its ship and if I'm right… ah ha! On with time!"

Sounds started again; bird song, sprinklers, a dog barking in the distance. A few houses down an old lady stared at us and blinked, then turned away and pottered back into her house, shaking her head.

"Come along, let's go find your friend," the Doctor headed off in the direction we had just ran. I followed along, still in a state of awe and shock. But more on the awe side.

As it turned out, Sasha was the one to find _us_. She came running down the road, breathless and wide eyed. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "I turned around and you were just gone a-and who is he?" She noticed the Doctor, who reached out a hand, shaking hers enthusiastically and introducing himself.

"Hello," he said cheerily, "You must be Sasha. I'm the Doctor."

Sasha stared at him, "Doctor who?"


	3. Prophecy: Chapter 2

**Book One: Prophecy**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

"So let me get this straight," Sasha said, "this thing is a time machine. You're an alien, but you sound British. And there are more aliens out there somewhere who froze time, but for some reason Nettie wasn't affected."

I cringed at the use of my despised nickname, but nodded. "That sounds just about right. Doctor?"

He nodded enthusiastically, "Just about, except the TARDIS isn't just a time machine, it can travel is space as well. TARDIS. Time and relative dimension in space." He patted the outside of the machine fondly, and then swung open the door. "So let's see what the Bensidhee are up to, shall we?"

"The Bensid-what-a?" I asked.

He stopped in his tracks, halfway through the TARDIS door. "Bensidhee," he said, leaning on the door frame, "Normally peacefully creatures, but we seem to have stumbled upon a militant group. Interesting. I didn't think the Bensidhee had a military, they're all seers. A bit too much like archaeologists for my liking… actually not at all like archaeologists, more of the opposite. Actually they are similar, they both try to see into times where they don't belong. Bit silly when you have a time machine, like I do. So are you coming?" he wrapped up his monologue by staring expectantly at my friend and me.

"We'll you said that they had some sort of prophecy about me, so waiting around here for them to try to kill me again probably isn't the best idea, is it?"

He smiled, "No it isn't. Horrible idea, in fact." He stepped back, giving us room to get inside his box. I opened my mouth to exclaim that it was bigger on the inside, but he beat me to it. "I know. Believe me, I've heard everything. Quick tour," he led us up the steps to a central hub of miscellaneous switches and levers all surrounding a large glass tube. "Don't touch that or that. You can touch that. That one is ketchup, that one is mustard… I think… More rooms that way, even more that way and the swimming pool still hasn't turned up," he took a deep breath, "Any questions?"

Sasha and I shook our heads and I suddenly became aware that my mouth was hanging open in a very undignified manner. I snapped it shut. Sasha sat down in a plush chair that was off to the side of the central control hub.

The Doctor clicked his fingers and the TARDIS door shut, "Now, I do have a few rules. Don't wander off. Everyone does, but try not to. Don't ask stupid questions. Unless they're important. And do everything I tell you to do. Got that?"

"Got it," I said.

"Got it," Sasha echoed.

"Ah and don't do that. Repeating each other. Had a bad experience with an echoing entity on a planet called Midnight. There was a bus… long story. Odd things happen on buses."

Sasha and I exchanged an amused look and watched as the Doctor busied himself with the switches and levers. Sasha leaned over and whispered in my ear, holding on tight to the chair as the ship was tossed around, on space and time instead of water. "Do you really think he's an alien? Or did we just agree to be kidnapped by a mad man who knows a few magic tricks?"

I stared at the Doctor thoughtfully, then whispered back "Both?"

We giggled and the Doctor shot us an amused look and then continued swinging around the controls. Pulling this lever and yanking that switch. Despite the haphazard design of the vehicle, he seemed to know what he was doing.

Finally the TARDIS started to steady out and with a familiar wheezing it came to a stop. The sudden stillness after being thrown around in such a manner seemed not to bother the Doctor as he trotted down the steps and to the door. I stayed seated, wanting to be sure that the ride was over and that we were once again on solid ground. "Come along then P-" The Doctor cut off what he was about to say, a sad expression washing over his face. He turned, pulling open the TARDIS door and sticking his head out. Sasha and I joined him and peeked past. The TARDIS was sitting in a quiet corner of a proper spaceship. And by proper I mean one made of actually metal. We were at the end of a long hallway, which twisted and turned and had walls that consisted of large pipes that snaked off in all directions. A little bit higher than head level, two pipes split, creating a window through which the inky black sky, freckled with stars, could be seen. At the end of the hallway one of the Bensidhee things walked past. Sasha gasped, her eyes wide, "Is that a…?"

I nodded.

"Oh my god!" She exclaimed, enunciating every word.

"I know right!"

"Yes it's an alien," the Doctor said patiently, "want to go say hello?"

"Those things tried to kill us," I pointed out. "I thought this was… you know… like a recon mission or something."

"Nah!" the Doctor said, heading down the hallway with us at his heels, "Here to make friends. This is probably all a misunderstanding and I really would like to hear more about that prophecy."

"The prophecy about me that also has to do with something unrepeatable. That prophecy?"

"Yeah, don't worry about the unrepeatable part. As I said, probably just a misunderstanding. How could it not be? It's not like you're destined to be a…" he shook his head, his bangs flopping over his eyes. "Not possible," he said quietly.

"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" A blaring alarm went off, and a yellow light started flashing over the corridor in which we were standing.

"Oi! No, we're not intruding, just visiting!" the Doctor said as a pack of armored Bensidhee turn up, glaring at us through their shallow, black eyes. With about ten different space gun pointed at his head, the Doctor sighed. "Alright, take me to your leader," he said loudly. "I love saying that," he whispered to me.


End file.
